


Big Sky Country

by Las



Category: Boondock Saints (1999)
Genre: Desert, Incest, M/M, Road Trip, Slash, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:57:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Las/pseuds/Las
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-movie. En route to California.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Sky Country

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2004, so some parts might've been jossed by the sequel, which I've yet to see. Thank you to anjali_organna for betareading.

It’s just that sometimes Connor wakes up in the middle night and sometimes Murphy doesn’t wake up with him. Even when Connor’s escaped out of his head and away from the nightmare, he would still be alone. He stares into the dark, unmoving, watching, waiting for equilibrium. No what the fuck, no you’re taking up all the space you cunt, no hand on his face, well-intentioned but careless with sleep, telling him I promise you there’s nothing out there, now shut the fuck up and sleep.

Connor knows there’s nothing out there. It’s what’s inside that scares him.

It’s just that sometimes after these dreams, Connor finds himself rubbing his hands as if he’s washing them, as if whatever he’s washing off isn’t going away because it’s more than skin-deep, more than flesh, more than blood.

Which is strange, really, because blood is precisely what this is about.

  
***

  
The first thing you notice in a desert is that there is nothing. Dust and dehydration for miles in any direction, punctuated by the odd cactus or handful of hardy shrubs. In the cartoons, the roadrunner can make it from here to the horizon in a second flat. In real life you can never reach the horizon. Connor knows this, but he's only just realizing it, driving through the desert under a sun that coats everything with oppressive yellow light.

Surviving: that's all anything in the desert is trying to do. In all this emptiness, there is no room for anything else.

“In America they call it big sky country,” says their father. He’s behind the wheel, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Between the oceans, you have lots of this,” and he gestures out the window at the landscape rolling by.

They’re on their way to California because their father knows someone there, or knows someone who knows someone, who will help them deal with the shitstorm tailing them from back east. Help them get back on their feet. Murphy replied he didn’t even realize they were off their feet, which made their father laugh a cracked and hearty laugh, slapping Murphy’s back and saying aye, aye.

“Who is this man?” Connor had asked.

“A friend.”

“How'd you meet him?”

A grin appeared on Il Duce’s face, revealing yellowed teeth. “It's not a proper story to tell little boys like yourself.”

Connor almost said fuck you then, but he held his tongue. You don't say fuck you to your father. Even after years of absence, after reappearing in your life as a stranger, blood will still hold you to certain obligations. You’re born with it running through your veins and you grow up learning it’s the one thing that doesn’t need to be questioned.

The saints avoid main roads because their pictures are still in the papers, on the television, everywhere. Just the artist's renderings at first, until someone did their homework went to the meatpacking plant to ask for the photo IDs of some former employees.

“Fuckin' horrible picture of me,” Murphy had said when he saw himself in the papers. Murphy continued, “I never look any fuckin’ good in photos.”

“You look like a drowned rat,” Connor observed, looking over Murphy’s shoulder, and Murphy smacked him with the paper.

“Photographs aren't going to do the likes of you and me any good,” Il Duce said. “I suggest you shut up, take your piss, buy your cigarettes, and we'll go. We have to go.”

1400 miles (approx.), three states, and a disconcerting number of roadkills later, here they are.

Il Duce says to them, “California’s but a few days away.”

If the heat doesn't get them, the endlessness will.

  
***

  
That first night they drove out of Boston, Murphy took up the entire backseat sleeping and Connor sat up front with his father.

“Saint George slew dragons,” said Il Duce.

Both of them had been seemingly content with their silence, and his father’s non sequitur took him unaware. Connor said, “What?”

“Even the Garden of Eden wielded a flaming sword.”

“‘A flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life’,” Connor recited. “Genesis, 3:24.”

“You know your Scripture.”

“What has this got to do with anything?”

“It’s got to do with you.”

“Me?”

“Your face,” said Il Duce. “Your eyes, mostly.”

“What’s wrong with my fucking eyes?”

“You heard eyes are windows to the soul, boy?”

The ‘boy’ sent Connor off-balance for a moment. Boy. Suddenly Connor had a father again. Suddenly, after years of nothing, he was his father’s son.

“I’m going to ask you again,” said Il Duce. “Don’t give me an answer. Just listen.”

“All right.”

“Do you possess the constitution, and depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?”

Connor stared ahead at the road, though there was nothing much to stare at. The passing headlights were as disconnected entities; not part of a car or a truck, but independent creatures of light rushing for some a vague and indefinable destination. Here was the sound of Il Duce clearing his throat, and there was the sound of Murphy’s breathing from the backseat like a comforting familiar presence, and all this soothed Connor for reasons he wouldn’t be able to articulate. Eventually, just outside of the Massachusetts border, he fell asleep.

  
***

  
Connor never remembered his dreams anymore. Back in Ireland, he remembered his dreams at least most of the time. Ever since he arrived in America, the dreams have been harder to catch.

“That’s because America’s the land of dreams,” Murphy said when Connor told him about it. Back in their decrepit little box of a home in Southie, Murphy said, “If you’re already surrounded by dreams when you’re awake, why would you need them when you sleep?”

Connor sucked contemplatively on a cigarette. “I’d not have taken you to have a poet’s soul, Murph,” he said, “but nevertheless, you’re wrong.”

“I’m right.”

“No, that’s Paris you’re talking about. America’s not the land of dreams.”

“Paris is lights, Mister Einstein, and it’s not a land. It’s a city.”

“What’s America, then?”

Murphy shrugged. “Land of the free. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be the land of dreams as well.”

“Land of the free what?” Connor asked. He saw Murphy smile, and Connor mistook the smile to mean they were in on the same joke. Connor scoffed and said, “Free fuckin’ nothing that we’re living in a shite apartment and food’s--”

Murphy reached over and plucked the cigarette out of Connor’s mouth, letting his fingers brush against Connor’s lips. Connor thought nothing of it. They had been trading things back and forth between them since they were children. A cigarette was nothing and Connor just smiled idly.

Murphy looked as if he would take a drag from the cigarette, but then extinguished it against the wall. “Of course we’re free, Con,” said Murphy and there was a light, or an absence of light, in Murphy’s eyes that Connor hadn’t noticed before. Murphy closed the distance between them and still Connor thought nothing of it. By the time Murphy’s mouth was on his and his hands were on Murphy’s body, by the time Murphy pushed him down to the mattress and pulled off his shirt, it was too late to think anything at all.

  
***

  
Connor wakes in the middle of the night with adrenalin in his veins and his heart threatening to sledgehammer its way out of his chest. He can hear his father’s unrelenting snores from the front seat. He can’t hear Murphy but doesn’t need to. There is a warm, insistent weight leaning against Connor and that’s all he needs to know. Murphy has always been a quiet sleeper.

Desert. Night. Trouble chasing them like bloodhounds from the east.

Right.

The details of the dream are fading fast and he lets them go. Connor catches a few glimpses of it, a handful of flashing images as the nightmare made its exit. There were feet running on concrete. A gray sky and the shadow of brick buildings. He thinks maybe he also sees smoke in empty rooms, hears men’s voices and gunshots, but these are memories, not dreams.

Murphy shifts in his sleep. Connor looks at his brother as if registering his presence for the first time. He idly brushes the hair away from Murphy’s forehead. He does it again, but lets his fingers linger this time, lets his thumb trace the ridge of Murphy’s nose until it comes to rest on his lips.

Murphy bites it. Connor jumps.

“Fuck you!”

“Ah, fuck, Con, where’s your sense of--”

“Fuckin’ fuck you, you bastard, what the--”

“--humor, I was fucking around!”

“You’re a fuckin’… you’re a--”

Murphy kisses Connor, and it’s unpleasant and disgusting because they’ve both been smoking like chimneys and they haven’t brushed their teeth in god knows how long. It’s disgusting and warm and familiar and soft. Connor kisses back, because this has never been about how things taste or smell.

“Jesus Christ,” Connor murmurs into Murphy’s mouth.

Connor shoves Murphy away and grapples with the car door. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he says again and the door swings open. He’s out under the stars and he’s going and gone. He walks fast in no particular direction, walking just to walk, and fuck, you’d never think it, but the desert gets cold. Out here when the sun goes down and it’s night and you can barely see fuck-all, it gets cold. Connor pulls his coat tighter around him.

Connor’s not surprised to hear the car door slam and Murphy running to catch up.

“What the fuck was that about?” Murphy asks.

“Fucking fuck ‘what the fuck was that about’, Jesus Christ, Murph. Our father was in the same car. Have you no scruples?”

“He was asleep.”

“And it appears you have none. He was in the same fucking car.”

“Alright. Fine. Fine, he was asleep and I’m a fucking idiot. There, you happy?”

“What kind of a fucking question is that.”

“Christ. We need some fucking alcohol.”

“Requiring alcohol to regain your clarity of mind,” Connor mutters. “Isn’t it nice to know that even in the middle of the American desert, you’re still propagating our national stereotype? A right patriot you are.” Connor glances over at the car. “Is he still asleep?”

“Maybe. Who cares? We’re not in the same fucking car anymore, are we?”

Connor tenses and picks up his pace just in case that was an advance. They walk with silence and speed, hands in their pockets as they make their way through the underbrush. Every minute or so, Connor would look behind him and he can always see the car. He always expects it to be obscured by some small hill or an overgrown mesquite tree, but no. It’s always there with his father inside, sleeping, snoring, or, perhaps, watching.

If you can see them, they can see you.

“Connor, are there rattlesnakes here?”

“What?”

“Rattlesnakes. Are there--”

“Rattlesnakes? Here?”

“Aye.”

Connor stops. He faces Murphy. “We’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere with no light and no nothing and the nearest hospital is fuck-knows how far, and you’re talking to me about rattlesnakes?”

“…Aye.”

“Fuck you.”

“What?”

“Now I’m twice as fuckin’ nervous.”

“About the rattlesnakes?”

“Aye!”

“Hey, don’t blame me for the fuckin’ rattlers, MacManus.”

“I wasn’t blaming you. Brilliant suggestion, though. Alright, Murph, I blame you.”

“For the rattlesnakes?”

“Aye, for the rattlesnakes. I blame you for the fuckin’ rattlesnakes.”

Their voices have diminished to whispers, the better to listen for the hiss of venomous reptiles, and Connor says, “Let’s go back to the car.”

“Let’s.”

Il Duce isn’t snoring when they reach the car. Connor doesn’t know if this means their father has found a more suitable sleeping position, or whether he’s only pretending to be sleeping, or whether it matters at all. In the back, both Connor and Murphy lean against opposite car doors, leaving half a foot of space of car seat between them. The only parts of them touching are their shoes, on the floor, incidentally. Incidentally is the keyword, so Connor doesn’t know why the touch feels as conspicuous as it does. He expends too much energy trying not to move his foot and wonders if he should.

This continues until Murphy pulls his foot away and Connor--out of reflex or propriety, who can say--does the same.

  
***Il Duce is not his real name, but it’s a fitting name. The other man who bore it was a dictator who fucked with the people over whom he ruled, and fucked up the nation for which he was responsible.

A fitting name.

Connor rarely calls him Da. He calls him Il Duce in jest. Most times Connor doesn’t call him anything at all, preferring to barge into the conversation without a sign of whom he’s talking to. It’s ruder, but also more proper somehow.

“You talk to folks about California,” says his father as he drives, “and people think of Hollywood. Of course they do. There ain’t no other fuckin’ thing in California. California’s got Tom Cruise and Kim Basinger and the Baldwin brothers, and then it’s got a fuckin’ lot of this.”

He gestures out the window at the scenery or lack thereof.

“What does your friend think of California?” asks Connor.

“What?”

The AC gave out ages ago. Connor and Murphy have stripped off their shirts and are prone as corpses in the backseat--corpses probably have lower body temperatures, Connor thinks bitterly--wet hair plastered to their head, skin discolored with heat and perspiration. Connor thinks they’re cooking themselves by just sitting here. He’s irritated at the request for repetition, but still he says, “Your friend. The one we’re meeting there.”

“Oh, aye. What the fuck does it matter what he thinks.”

“I’m just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, you’ve never heard? And my friend, he’s not much of a thinking type.”

“Are we meeting him in Los Angeles?” asks Murphy. “San Francisco, then?”

“San Francisco?” Il Duce parrots distractedly.

“San Francisco. Or… the other one. The other San, with the zoo.”

“Diego,” Connor mumbles.

“San Francisco’s nothing,” says Il Duce. “What’ve you got in the place? Bridges and chinks. You’ve got poofters strutting around the place in dresses and high heels. The fuck would you want in a place like that.”

Connor laughs, but his throat is dry, his motivation is stilted, and he sounds like he’s got something in his throat. “Aye,” he tries to say, and coughs again.

“Jesus, boy,” says Il Duce. “We’ll stop for water at the next station. You alright?”

“Just the sun,” says Connor, avoiding Murphy’s eyes. “Fuckin’ heat.”

  
***

  
Connor thinks--but isn’t sure--that he dreams about the killings.

They’re not called killings, of course. Moral cleansing, divinely ordained. He and Murphy and Il Duce are not vigilantes, but saints or something like it.

The shreds of dreamstuff he’s left with when he wakes are full of things like the taste of blood, the feel of gunmetal, and the question that his father has already twice asked. Connor doubts he will ask a third time.

When the order is to pull out his guns and let the bullets fly, Connor will do it because he is a mean, motherfucking servant of God who does not go back on his word. ‘Strangely comfortable with it,’ he said to Murphy once. He can say it again, he’s sure of it. He’s always sure, except for the times when he’s not.

Murphy told him once that he doesn’t believe in hypocrisy. There is no such thing as hypocrisy, just people who adjust for better or worse.

Connor thinks his brother is right, for the most part. He hadn’t been listening closely at the time, because all he had wanted to do was shove Murphy against the wall and kiss him. They were in Southie on their way home late at night and Connor couldn’t do any of this outside, but as soon as they reached home, Connor pushed Murphy on the mattress, took his shirt off, took Murphy’s shirt off, and fell upon his brother like a wave upon the sand. The kiss is like a breath of air and Connor moans in his throat, fade to black, fade to black.

They have fallen into a routine. Once they’ve crossed the line, they cannot stop, they cannot falter for fear that reality that will catch up and take them down in their moment of hesitation. This is fucking your brother. This is taking human life.

He’s strangely comfortable with it, but not always.

  
***

  
San Martinez is a handful of pebbles thrown against the southwestern desert. A gas station, a liquor store, a sheriff’s office, a one-horse town. A collection of squat indiscriminate buildings that serve squat indiscriminate purposes, blending into the desert like all it’s ever meant to be is a minor aberrance in the landscape.

The MacManus men go into a convenience store where Murphy affixes a winning smile and begins to charm the girl at the counter while Connor and Il Duce slip provisions into their coats.

“I’m surprised it’s not you up there,” Il Duce mutters nonchalantly to Connor. “You have the fairer face. Funny, being twins and looking nothing alike. You boys don’t even have the sense in your head to be proper twins.”

Connor knows it’s a joke, so he just makes a noncommittal grunt and drifts away. He’s not feeling up to charming anyone. It’s the sun. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s the ennui of open spaces. He feels like someone put him together the wrong way.

For appearances, Il Duce throws a small bag of lemon drops on the counter, grins and asks, “How much?”

Back outside, Murphy turns left at an intersection when Connor and Il Duce continue across the street. Connor doesn’t realize this until he’s halfway to the other side, and he pauses and looks behind him. Murphy is standing on the sidewalk, waiting.

“Come on,” says Murphy.

“What are you doing?” Il Duce demands, but Connor goes to his brother without a word. “Where the fuck are you two off to now?”

“We’re in the middle of the fucking desert, where do you think we can go?” says Murphy, grinning. “What business is it of yours, old man? Who do you think you are? Our father?”

To that, Il Duce raises his can of beer in salute and grins (or grimaces, Connor can’t quite tell). He continues on his way, and so do they.

With a beer each, one more in their coat pockets, and nothing much to do, their walk is leisurely and their conversation comfortably haphazard. When a San Martinez denizen comes close, Connor and Murphy shout an over-friendly greeting, emboldened by the drastic contrast between the town’s placidity and their own high spirits. When their beer cans are empty, they leave them balanced precariously on the edge of the curb and continue on their way, going through the loot in Connor’s pockets.

A candy bar.

Mint gum.

Some lemon drops.

A pack of cigarettes and a brand new lighter, though neither feel like smoking.

Et cetera, etc.

At the end of a T-intersection is a pink-painted building that, at six stories, is one of the tallest buildings in San Martinez. Fairview Apartments, the sign declares in curly golden letters. Without warning, Murphy runs to it.

“Murph!” Connor calls out, and Murphy keeps on running. He reaches the other side of the street and doesn’t stop.

Connor gives chase. Around the side of the building they go, rushing under its large and merciful shadow. Murphy goes straight for the fire exit and takes the steps two at a time, heading for the roof.

Connor grins despite himself. He knows this game. He recognizes this ritual. Connor grabs the railings and vaults four steps. Some things fall out of his pockets but he doesn’t care. The stairs creak under their weight, and every footstep brings forth a sound like cymbals crashing.

Sometimes, back in Boston, Connor and Murphy would go to the roof of their illegal tenement to drink beer, or laugh, or enjoy the silence. They would smoke cigarettes and blow the smoke in each other’s mouths, and whatever else would help to clear their minds. Whatever else would give them peace in the moment. It was easier to reach peace up there, elevated over the slums of South Boston--the slums they slowly felt themselves becoming a part of. Up there, they are closer to God, closer to being absolved from whatever chased them up there in the first place.

One of many similarities that Connor and Murphy share is a fascination with the infinite. That’s why they believe in God. That’s why they hold on to the bond between them. That’s why they find themselves on the roof of Fairview Apartments in San Martinez, surrounded on all sides by endless things.

There are no walls. Only sky.

“I feel like I can walk straight off the edge and land right on the sand,” says Murphy. “But then you look straight down… and, fuck…”

Murphy and Connor balance themselves on the edge, testing themselves against the fatal drop and testing each other. _How far would you go?_ They both have a taste for recklessness, but it’s always Connor who, under the guise of annoyance and brotherly duty, grabs his brother by the shirt and pulls him back, well away from the siren call of the terminus.

Six stories above ground, it’s the old routine: Connor grabs him and yanks him in. Murphy backs into Connor. Connor doesn’t step back. They don’t bump into each other so much as they slide into place.

“It’s bad feng shui, did you know,” says Connor, sliding his hands over Murphy’s wrists, “if they put a building at the head of a T-intersection like this. It’s a red carpet that leads evil spirits straight here.”

“You think there are a lot of exorcisms in Fairview Apartments, then?”

“More like a fuckload of miserable people, maybe.”

“I’d be miserable living in this place.”

There’s someone on the street--man or woman, Connor can’t tell from this height--who spots them. He or she stops in their tracks, and stares up at them. Murphy chuckles. The brothers step back, back, back, away from view.

Murphy turns around in Connor’s arms and his hands are on Connor’s chest, pushing him back, back…

“The fuck are you doing?” asks Connor. “I’m going to fall over if you don’t stop.”

…back, back… “You won’t,” says Murphy, and his fingers shift purposefully over Connor’s shoulders, conveying touch and foreshadowing through the layers of fabric. Their eyes meet, identical shades of blue, and Connor sees a look on Murphy’s face like he’s had a few drinks and has just placed money on the wrong side of a bet.

Connor backs into the wall. He feels Murphy’s fingers caress his face. He feels Murphy’s kiss.

Connor has always been hypersensitive to Murphy’s kisses, because he wants them and is scared of them at the same time. When Murphy presses their mouths together, it happens in slow motion, and Connor can distinguish every moment, like individual frames in a reel of film. Their tongues touch and Connor feels his stomach lurch with thrill and nausea. Not the bile kind of nausea, but the kind that comes of kissing your brother and liking it.

There is a part of Connor that still asks him, even now when they’re joined at the mouth, even when he and Murphy have done this countless times before, there is always a part of him that demands to know. _How can you? Why do this?_

Because it's Murphy.

The most unreasonable answer, and the truest.

  
***

  
When Murphy takes a step back, Connor grabs his elbows, unwilling to relinquish the feeling of Murphy’s body against his own. Murphy drops to his knees and Connor thinks, _Oh_. Murphy quickly undoes Connor’s belt, unzips Connor’s trousers. Connor clutches fistfuls of Murphy’s hair, his head pushing back against the wall so hard that it hurts, and he thinks, _Fuck_.

The first thing he feels is the heat. Murphy’s mouth is warm. He sucks in air around Connor’s cock, and that’s when he feels the wetness. He doesn’t let go of Murphy’s hair, and if that hurts, Murphy ignores the pain. Connor’s hips move of their own accord, steady and slow. He comes fucking his brother’s mouth, groaning, shuddering, spent, heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Murphy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as Connor does up his trousers. He slides to the floor until he’s level with Murphy. Connor half-heartedly attempts to smooth Murphy’s hair and Murphy swats his hand away. Undeterred, Connor grabs him by the collar and pulls him in for a kiss.

“I think we’re fucked,” says Connor.

Murphy settles himself beside Connor. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think Da has anyone in California. I think Da’s lying. We’re alone, there’s no one--”

“You’re the fucking liar.”

Connor stares at him, at the sharpness of Murphy’s reaction. “I’m not a fucking liar.”

“Why are we going to California if there’s nothing there?”

“Because we might as well. Might as well, where else can we go? Everyone’s after us. Where can we go?”

“What do you suggest we do, then, if you’re right?”

“I don’t know.” Connor says, “Murphy.”

“What?”

“D’you ever think about it.”

“About what?”

The words sound misshapen in Connor’s mouth when he says, “The killing.”

“Our killing?” says Murphy.

“Aye.”

“The killing we do, for God?”

There’s an emphasis on the last word, so subtle and slight and easy to miss, but Connor misses nothing. “Aye.”

Murphy doesn’t reply, and Connor begins to think that Murphy means to let this drop. The look on Murphy’s face says he’s thinking about it, but it doesn’t say whether Connor will ever know what he’s thinking, no matter what they say about the bond between twins.

Murphy eventually says, “You think too much.”

Connor says, “Aye.”

  
***

  
The mountains have been looming in the distance for some time now. It’s one of the more petulant members of the landscape. Sometimes he can see the Rockies, a jagged ribbon of dark blue on the horizon. Other times the thermals would rise from the ground. Waves of heat would ripple the air and blur the mountains until it looked one with the sky.

Now you see it, now you don’t.

“Well, fuck me,” says Murphy, sitting up. “Elevated land.”

“Won’t be long now, boys,” says Il Duce.

“Where _is_ our man?” Murphy asks. His tone is light. “Give us an answer, Da. Where are we going?”

“Have I not answered that question before?”

“No.”

Il Duce says, “Our man’s in Los Angeles.”

“Where in Los Angeles?”

“Have you been to Los Angeles, Murphy?”

“No.”

“So shut the fuck up and let me drive, boy.”

“What’s his name?”

“Did you not hear me?” Il Duce yells.

Connor smokes his cigarette and blows the smoke out the window. “What are we going to do when we get to Los Angeles?” he asks.

“What do you think?” says Murphy. “It’s more of the same.”

“Smitty Rodriguez,” Il Duce mutters. “His name’s fucking Smitty Rodriguez, are you happy?”

Connor and Murphy exchange glances, then Connor looks away.

“Oh, good,” Connor says glibly. “Good because, just imagine if there was no Smitty Rodriguez in Los Angeles at all.”

“I don’t like your fucking tone,” says Il Duce.

“We’re out on our arses in some new fucking city and nothing’s changed--”

“Boy!” Il Duce yells.

“--except the police maybe takes a little longer to catch us, and we spend…”

“You shut the fuck up or I’ll leave you in the middle of the fucking desert.”

“How long does it take for the police to forget about a murderer, you think?” Connor demands. “Murph?”

“Don’t know,” Murphy replies.

“Shut the fuck up! I can’t drive with you fucking yelling in my fucking ear!”

“I’m shutting the fuck up, Jesus fucking Christ!” Connor yells. “I’m shutting fucking… fucking…” In a harsh and jagged tone, he hisses, “Just imagine if we didn’t have your Smitty Rodriguez, we’d be really fucked.”

“If there’s no Rodriguez, we’ll be in God’s hands. That should be good enough for you. Is that good enough for you, boy?” asks Il Duce.

_Do you have the constitution and depth of faith to go as far as is needed?_ asks the things between the lines.

The fuck you is on the tip of Connor’s tongue and he bites down hard.

  
***

  
Face down on the bed, Connor clutches fistful of blanket as Murphy pounds into him from behind. Or, he would be, if there was a bed, blankets, and everything else. Murphy fucks Connor in Connor’s head, and Connor is leaning against the back car, miles away from anywhere at some ungodly hour of night with his cock in his hand.

His father is sitting in the driver’s seat, smoking one more cigarette. Murphy stands a distance away from Connor, watching him.

Murphy holds Connor’s hips, clutching hard enough to bruise.

Murphy is a smudge of a silhouette against the Arizona night.

In his head, Murphy comes with a moan at the same time Connor does. While his breathing is still ragged, while he’s still lost in the post-orgasm haze, the real Murphy walks over, kicking some sand over the semen, and kisses him, a firm and simple press of lips.

One Mississippi two Mississippi break.

“He can see,” Connor says breathlessly, too late. Murphy just climbs into the car.

“What do you say we open up the boot,” Il Duce says idly, when Connor climbs in, “and one of you can sleep in there? It’s more room.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” is all Connor says, and that is that.

In the minute before Connor falls asleep, the dream creeps back. The images are scant but vivid: the feel of a gun barrel on your temple, the sight of a murderer on his knees, the **BANG** of bullets, the **NO** of witnesses, the anger that stains the world red like blood and not like wine, just like the way the sun stains the desert yellow.

Jaundice and not gold.

Disease and not prosperity.

Connor isn’t trying to do anything but go back to sleep and there it is like an ex-lover with empty eyes and a swollen belly standing on his doorstep. _I’m back. Deal with me._

This is fucking your brother. This is taking lives. This is about blood, precisely.


End file.
